1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer-related methods, and more particularly, to a method for utilizing a three-dimensional (3-D) mouse in graphic-user-interface based operating systems, such as the WINDOWS operating systems from the Microsoft Corporation, that use windows to interact with the user.
2. Description of Related Art
The WINDOWS 95 operating system from the Microsoft Corporation provides a multi-tasking graphic user interface environment that allows the IBM-compatible PC (personal computer) users to operate the PC easily and conveniently by using a pointing device, such as a mouse. In the WINDOWS environment, various viewing areas called windows allow the user to interact with the multitasking applications running under the operating system. A window is typically composed of a workspace, drop-down menus, and scroll bars that allows the user to edit documents, retrieve database information, making spreadsheets and charts, writing programs, and various other computer-based works. The scroll bars typically include a vertical scroll bar and a horizontal bar that allow the user to scroll through the document or information displayed through the window in various directions. To use the scroll bars, the user needs to use the pointing device to move the pointer on the screen to the scroll bars and then press on the active areas of the scroll bars to scroll through the displayed document.
One drawback to the conventional pointing devices, however, is that it is not quite easy to quickly and accurately pinpoint the pointer on the scroll bars. Moreover, it is usually time-consuming and laborious to use the scroll bars to scroll through the document to a certain page, particularly when the document is a lengthy one.
As a solution to the foregoing problem, the Microsoft Corporation has introduced a wheel-type mouse called IntelliMouse that allows the user to easily and effortlessly operate the scroll bars by means of rolling or pressing the wheel thereon to perform certain functions very quickly, such as resizing the windows and fast scrolling the document. The Microsoft Corporation has set forth a new standard, called IntelliMouse Standard, which defines a signal format for the wheel-activated control signals from the IntelliMouse. Based on the IntelliMouse Standard, the wheel-activated control signals can be converted into windows-acceptable commands that are used to control the scrolling of the document currently being in the active window (or called foreground window). When the driver program of the IntelliMouse receives any wheel-activated control signals from the IntelliMouse, it passes these signals to a hidden window which processes these signals in accordance with the IntelliMouse Standard so as to thereby generate correspondimg windows-acceptable commands (hereinafter referred to as "IntelliMouse-compliant windows commands") that are then transferred to the active window. In response to the IntelliMouse-compliant windows command, the active window will control its child window to carry out the specified actions, such as resizing the window or scrolling the active document. In the event that the active window is unable to read the IntelliMouse-compliant windows commands, no actions will be carried out. Applications that are able to read the IntelliMouse-compliant windows command that are generated in accordance with the IntelliMouse Standard are those specifically designed for running under the WINDOWS 98 operating system, such as Microsoft Office 97 and Internet Explorer 3.0. Since the IntelliMouse Standard is a new standard, old applications that are specifically designed for running under the earlier WINDOWS 95 operating system, such as the Microsoft Office 95, are unable to accept the IntelliMouse-compliant windows commands. Therefore, the use of the IntelliMouse is only limited to those applications that can compatible with the IntelliMouse Standard. For users of the earlier WINDOWS 95 operating system, there exists a need for a means that allows them to use the IntelliMouse on their PCs.